Should eBay Use Experts to Help Combat Fakes?

by: mcposty

Its all pointless considering they do jack squat to stop china selling fake EVERYTHING

Even vero program is hudeously stupid, since ebay doesnt care about veridying if its a reasonable vero..such as duncan donuts veroing anything duncan donuts..ebay only protects china thats it

by: Philip Cohen

Seriously, why would eBay want to do anything about "fakes"; the FVF is the same on the sale of a fake as it is on a genuine product, is it not?

The eBay executive suite—where the incompetent mingle with the disingenuous, the malevolent and the outright criminal, and the just plain stupid ... http://bit.ly/11F2eas

by: iheartjacksparrow

Since eBay is actively assisting China in the production of fakes, it would be an exercise in futility for eBay to maintain a program to identify and remove fakes when their preferred sellers are the main manufacturers of bogus items.

by: collectorjim

I think anything eBay does going forward is nothing more than a desperate attempt to boost revenues.  

by: LDS Brother

HELL NO !!!!!

And as for report item, we all know with the damage DSR's have done on most cases of the LYING opinion of the scum buyers, why would this be any different ?

eBay ALWAYS takes a liars word that can damage the seller as the GOSPEL TRUTH !!!!!

This is scary ! Buyers LIE !!!!!

Competitors could just buy then say it is fake behind the sellers back !

My blood boils to 1000 Degrees, when I get a lying buyer remorse buyer, who creates a lie to get refunded, stating the reason is counterfeit or fake !
I flip my lid ! I will not take that abuse ! All this will do is make it easy for people to lie to eBay and get a seller suspended !

More Bullsh*t coming sellers way to RECONNECT with Devil

by: pace306

VERO ONLY exists so that eBay can say that they are "doing something" about "the problem".

Beyond that, eBay doesnt give a rat's @$$ about real or fake - as long as the FVFs and the monies from store/manufactorers come rolling in.

If you are a VERO member and want to open a store or have a store and you complain loud enough, VERO will GLADLY shut down anyone they are directed to.

eBay had that deal with Skullcandy. Skullcandy refused to open an eBay Platinum store until VERO "cleaned up the place". So, at Skull's direction, VERO went around and closed the listings of ANY and EVERY one who Skull "didnt know". Didnt know is the euphemism for fakes.

I know about this all since it happened to me. I bought my goods from their distributor (who lied to Skull about it as it was against their dealer contract) and then when cornered by my attorny fessed up.

eBay SWORE they were "in the right" since Skullcandy "told them to do it".

OR we can take Casio. Nice company, great watches - THEY cut a deal with VERO to close listings that do NOT have GSP in them. Ie you cant list items for sale on eBay.com and ship (show)them world wide since that(apparently) is illegal.

OK so its NOT and listing items in the US from a US based company is NOT illegal ..... of course and unless you cut eBay into the pie (GSP dollars). THEY and only THEY are allowed to ship to other countries and you must NOT click "ships to the US and other places".

OR we can take Denon. They too "direct eBay" to shut people down whom they dont know.

Lets not forget Sony, Directed Electronics, Alpine, Kenwood, Pioneer, Escort and many many others.

It would be a "great world to live in" if people were honest, but they arent.

And, leading the pack in dishonesty is eBay. Its no wonder manufacturers, sellers, buyers and almost everyone just hates them.

Proof in the pudding? they are another no show at CES. LOOSERS.

by: LasVagueness

As a luxury goods seller I would like eBay to do more in thwarting the sale of counterfeit goods. I recently checked my eBay user ID on the PurseForum (an authentication site supposedly comprised of 'experts') and discovered an 'expert' opinion that one of my bags was fake. I purchased this bag from Neiman Marcus! An e-mail addressing the issue went unanswered. So I suppose it will depend on the credentials of the evaluator.  

by: cfrphoto

Short of having paid staff with enough experience to recognize bad listings, any type of external reporting would be unlikely to expose more than a small percentage of listings that should be removed. A better approach would be to allow buyers in categories like stamps or coins to allow buyers to send won items to recognized expertizing committees for an opinion. The buyer would pay for the certificate if the item was good and the seller would pay if the item received a bad opinion. While the devil is in the details, eBay could arrange for sellers to ship requested items directly to the expertizing service. Once a certificate was issued, bad items would be returned to the seller and good items to the buyer. The financial part could be handled by eBay through PayPal. The PayPal extension of the claims period to six months gives ample time to obtain a certificate.

The effect on careless or malicious sellers would be dramatic. Incompetent sellers would have to be more careful. It is likely that sellers like the ''British Cartel'' would start thinking about going elsewhere instead of continuing to open new seller accounts as old ones are found out and closed.

Allowing certificates for stamps or coins over some threshold amount would help level the playing field. Many buyers  underbid because of the high likelihood of receiving a damaged stamp or improperly graded coin that they don't want and can't return.

by: printersmithcom2

The REASON eBay is stepping away from this program is because they want MORE counterfeits, duh!  I agree with all the above posts.  We have been beheaded by the VERO program more than once an 9 times out of 10 we had a valid argument.  If eBay had not been sued repeatedly years ago they would have never come up with ZERO on their own.  Vero is a disaster and all brands are clearly abusing it.  A seller has ZERO rights, and they take everybody's word as the Gospel, except the very professional seller, the person who has spent years building their business, who is most familiar with the products they are selling.

The amount of money that ebay is making from Fake Goods is in the BILLIONS. If China were to stop selling on Ebay tomorrow, Ebay would experience a total stock collapse within the next quarter or two and revenue would absolutely plummet.  

Ebay = Enron

by: Tiffee Jasso

In all my years of selling antiques and collectibles, I would have to say most Experts I have talked to are limited to their own little niche and not the category in general. That make for lots of mistakes in the information they pass on. Many don't even know the basics or history behind what ever it is that is on the table for sale, they just know it is what they collect or don't collect.  

by: printersmithcom2

Back to the original question, ABSOLUTELY!!  Nothing ebay ever does is logical, but for ebay to eliminate the expert opinion is simply ludicrous.  

There NEEDS to be a very strong 3rd party arbritration service instead of VERO.  Instead of pulling down ads, require the seller to send a copy to the 3rd Party Verification Services and pay an Independent Party to verify the authenticity of their goods.  If the seller elects not to do that, then they must simply take down their ads within 24 hours.  Problem solved fairly and legally for everyone involved.  Vero is NOT legal, and Vero type programs do not exist anywhere else in the world.  In America, you are INNOCENT until PROVEN guilty.  Vero is NOT legal, fair, moral, ethical, or constitutional.  It is UN-American to its core.

There is an Easy & Simple solution that is FAIR to all parties involved, although ebay remarkably does not know to accomplish that.  I suggest ebay make it work just like in the normal business world.  In the real business world, Brands have to send Cease & Desist letters and the seller has a certain time to respond.  Any smart seller who is in the gray area would immediately cease and desist, duh, or be sued.  Any solid seller who is 100% legitimate would use a 3rd Party entity to get a Certificate of Authenticity or get his invoices together and send that back to the attorney for the Brand.  

Ebay is NOT a business, it is a daycare:

The buyers are absolute spoiled little 2 year olds,

The sellers are misbehaving teenagers who all drink, smoke, and do drugs.  They could not possibly be trusted to do anything right,

The Brands are nothing more than playground bullies who have absolutely no morals, ethics, or values.  They will never back off unless a bigger bully comes along and smashes them in the face.

And the Ebay Suits are nothing more than pompous dignitaries who sit on their polished thrones.  Who have never worked a day in their life or struggled for anything.  Their hearts could not possibly be touched with any of these realities and absolutely none of them have ever lived a day in our shoes.  I highly doubt that any of the top paid executives who make all these foolish decisions have ever experienced "making money" on Ebay.  The suits will never fight for anything except to keep themselves on their big fat thrones.

There is only one problem with this picture:  TEENAGERS GROW UP and they most vividly remember their juvenile years!!  One day a bunch of them will get together and create another kingdom with an army of Sellers large enough to invade Ebay's territory and knock them off their throne.

It will happen.  It has happened to every "kingdom" in history.  Evil rulers always have been and always will be abolished.  

by: Marie

I didn't know they had such a program.  What I do know is anytime in the past several years that I've reported an item that I knew to be fake from what the listing said, Ebay did nothing about them.  

There are some sellers that use Keyword spamming and Ebay allows them to get away with it as them will have 100's of listings written that way.  Reporting them does not good.  The same guys I reported a couple years ago are still doing business today.

And Vero is a hot mess.  They need not prove you've done anything wrong at all.  All they have to do is say remove the listing and it goes poof.

by: Caroline1

I'd rather Ebay used experts than relied on other users to report listings.

I tried to sell a pair of my son's outgrown Nikes (child's size) a few years ago. They were taken down and I was slapped with a violation within 30 minutes of listing. When I called customer service, all the woman would say was that another member had reported them. All that could have saved me was the original receipt from Peebles.

by: ajeweler

@cfrphoto
ebay already has this in place for coins, in addition buyers use this policy to buy something say xf-au hoping to obtain a higher grade uncirculated, so what you propose is simply  buy your stuff certified to begin with, if you do not accept it raw simply do not buy it buy the ones already graded there are thousands of them listed already,
VERO is a joke, I had a rolex watch taken down one time I have been doing rolex going on 45 years and know phony ones, I did not sell to Italy as we all know Italy is know for items not received cases, as they do not honor usps tracking, after this buyer asked me several times to sell it to him I refused, needless to say he reported it falsely, it was removed when I reported to e bay I already know who the report was sent from, they removed the mark and reinstated the watch.
I do not think e bay cares at all about anything but sellers in china, mark my words next month there will be no more used goods only new , the regulation center will close and all cases will go thru paypal  (and we all know they will not require buyers to send back item and will refund buyers)
donahoe sold his shares with e bay and is going to paypal now when e bay fails the new guy will be to blame, as I say the rats jumped the ship, business on e bay is gone my favorite sellers stopped selling after the newest rental policies, adding this would just add to the already sinking ship with more defects to honest hard working sellers, adding yet another rule to the thousands in place would create utter chaos  

by: Rexford

It depends on who these experts are. We have found that some of the so called experts associated with VeRO are nothing more than hired third parties with questionable credentials and in some cases even law firm paralegals.  It has been a few years, but we have had authentic merchandise pulled under the VeRO program in the past.  We fought (and won) each one, and some of them were time consuming with a lot of back-and-forth, and also having to track down the intellectual property attorneys within those companies to make some headway. Some of these brands in the VeRO program are nothing more than bullies.  They simply don't want their products sold on eBay.

With eBay intending to layoff thousands, I doubt seriously if they are going to pay real experts to take on this initiative.  As others have stated, some of the Chinese sellers are the biggest purveyors of counterfeits, and it would take an army of experts to deal with them.

by: ignatz

ebay is winding down its counterfeit reporting program because counterfeiting has become an official part of its business model, according to Devin Wenig:  http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/08/why-ebay-t
ells-chinese-manufacturers-what-youre-searching-for/375624/

by: ajeweler

wow, and if a us seller had "vintage style" in their title ebay would remove the listing as "key word spamming" or counterfeit, it is downright shame what e bay is doing to its us people I am now wondering if Wenig is not wang??? or weng Chinese name, its known that china has more people than usa, and it does not recognize the copyright laws here , I guess they will promote their use then get rid of them later, in addition are sellers aware there are special rates that china sellers have, listing final values, and shipping, however when I was reading the "ebay money back garentee" it seems that only us sellers have to pay return shipping, "out of the country" is excluded from paying return shipping, in addition they receive special incentives from ebay to ship here, and if a problem arises, the us buyer has to pay return shipping, generally costing more than the item value, even if it is counterfeit ,reproduction, fake,copy etc etc

by: brokentoys19

yeah but now everyone will have access to the same powerful reporting features. Just ask thecounterfeitreport.com

Who says there's no level playing field on ebay?

Hip hip, Hooray!  

by: ignatz

@ajeweler

Makes you wonder if Jack Ma's (i.e.China's) strategy isn't to buy ebay, but simply to run it into the ground with all these "global trade deals," then in a few years get paid to take it off their hands.

by: a_c_green

I had not heard of the EMR program before, but I can't see that likely to be much of a success, partly because of the potential for never-ending he-said/she-said arguing between sellers of legitimate items and ''experts'' convinced that they're fakes (especially hard to prove either way if the only evidence is in the form of a few amateur photos in the listing), and partly because eBay has demonstrated no interest or activity in enforcing even simpler complaints: copying of photos or description text when reported by the seller whose content was copied.

When they no longer respond to obvious, simple-to-verify issues such as that, the odds of their successfully tackling much more complex complaints involving authenticity are slim to none, and we all know where Slim went. :-)

If there is no discernible return on investment to be had by some website feature or service, eBay does not have a good track record in implementing it successfully. Examples of that can be seen in their website coding, copied-content reporting (which, to be clear, used to work several years ago, but no longer does), and outsourced telephone support. I'm not optimistic that any of it is going to improve anytime soon.